Hanging Waters by Keith West

-"DURING my own youth," said the voice of Uncle Tung Lai Luk from the closed carrying-chair, "I could walk for many miles without becoming tired. To rise in the morning with the punctual birds, to work while light lasts, and then to sleep the sound, dreamless sleep of a healthy boy--that was the ancient way. Now our youth has apparently become so effeminate that a walk like this, beside my chair, brings fatigue before twenty _li_ have been covered. What would you, Ming? That I should descend from my chair into the rain and give my place to you? Are there not bearers for your meagre luggage? Have you not the burden only of your own body?" The voice died away in grumblings. It seemed a less jolly uncle who now spoke to the boy from the comparative comfort behind those green blinds of oiled cloth.

-"I did not complain, Uncle Tung," said the boy. "I said that I was tired--I did not complain. And as for your descending from the chair, quite apart from the question of the rain, I think that would be foolish, since it is improbable that you could walk so fast or so far as these coolies who bear your chair on their shoulders, or even as I, who plod along beside you in the mud."